TV Review: The Ridges

TV reviewer Michele Hewitson took in the first episode of The Ridges and says they're no match for the Kardashians.

Jaime Ridge and Sally Ridge. Photo / Supplied

"What is my talent?" She cocks her head to one side. "Well, a bear can juggle and stand on a ball and he's talented, but he's not famous. Do you know what I mean?"

That is a quote from Kim Kardashian from an interview in last Sunday's Observer. I looked at this quote for a while, from many angles, then I stood on a ball, and juggled the words in the air, imagining I was a bear. I still don't know what she meant. Obviously I wasn't either a bear, or talented or famous enough.

Oh, it's easy enough to make fun of Kim Kardashian. I feel sorry for her, almost. If you can feel sorry for, say, a distant planet that looks nice, if you like planets with big bums, but is empty of almost everything we actually require for our continued existence. Isn't she bored? She says she's always frantically busy, but doing what? Being Kim Kardashian, you suppose.

Why would anyone want to be in a reality television show?

I had some hopes of finding out, now that we have The Ridges (TV3, Wednesdays, 7.30pm). Are they our Kardashians? Hardly. Jaime, as she points out, is always described as a model - although she is only sometimes a model and is mostly a commerce and law student. The reality show-makers aided in this perception by helpfully showing pictures of Jaime being a model.

Sally is very talented too. Her talent is doing up houses. Jaime said: "My mum is the most amazing person I've ever met. People don't give her credit but she's very talented at stuff like this."

Stuff like this is the doing up of the dump she's bought, complete with eight downstairs tenants, for untold (as in we weren't told) amounts of money. Despite Sally and Jaime being as close as Kim and Kris (no, not that other Kris, the one Kim dumped two minutes after a wedding that cost untold, as in we weren't told, millions), Sally bought the dump without showing it to Jaime.

She had also bought a house in which Jaime would have no wardrobe (her clothes are her life, she said) and no ensuite bathroom. This seemed a bit neglectful, not to mention a bit convenient, in that it would make for what might pass as drama.

The mouse in the kitchen seemed rather convenient too. It looked like a rather friendly sort of mouse to me - it certainly stuck around, despite the screaming. Still, what sort of mother/best friend would buy such a house and expect Jaime to live in it?

Jaime has a bottle of hand sanitiser for each of her handbags. Her mother said: "She's a bit precious, my girl. But that's okay. That's her personality and that's why I love her so much."

Is precious a personality? Never mind.

Sally said: "My life has been incredibly interesting." Well, hooray! That's what we want in our reality TV stars. Ex-husband number one, Matthew Ridge, crossed Ponsonby Rd with a baby stroller to, presumably, avoid having to pass his ex-wife and ex-daughter who were drinking wine on the footpath. (No, not like deros, alas.) Jaime and her father don't have a relationship and Jaime has never met her half-brother but "it is what it is. It's my motto."

Was that incredibly interesting? Who knows? We haven't yet been privy to any of the incredibly interesting details of Sally's life, but it's early days. Sally and Jaime went to Colin Mathura-Jeffree's birthday party. The cameras weren't allowed inside. How incredibly uninteresting. Thinking your life is incredibly interesting might be the clue to why anyone would want to be in a reality TV show.

Sally's other, younger, children are not in the show. She says she'd have been accused of exploiting her children if they had been.

But, honestly, what's wrong with exploiting children? If I'd known you could use them to go up chimneys and down the booze shop when you run out of gin and get on you on the covers of women's magazines - for dosh - I'd have had 18.

Sally and Jaime looked at some old women's magazines. There was a picture of husband number one and Sally and baby Jaime. Jaime appeared in a boot.

She said: "You put me in a boot then took a picture of it? That is so creepy."